[Year 12 SofDev] Deja vu

[Lisa Kerekes]

Hi,
I raised the same question at the start of the thread titled “It is safe to comment on the SD exam” which generated some responses. My thoughts:


A)     Study design suggests (from a plain-english reading of it – I asked actual English teachers to read and interpret it) to require teaching of associative arrays, but optionally in addition, dictionary or hash tables.
I assume the reason for the use of the word ‘or’ is because different programming languages deal with them differently.


B)     Hash tables do not = associative arrays


C)     Also agree with Brett… hash functions are different to hash tables.

A 5-mark question on this seems a smidgen unfair.

Clarification of this KK would be appreciated for next year, as would definitions according to VCAA for some of the other items raised in emails so far.


Lisa Kerekes
Secondary Teacher
Phone: (03) 9844 2471

From: sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Brett Fitzsimmons
Sent: Saturday, 12 November 2016 7:40 PM
To: Year 12 Software Development Teachers' Mailing List <sofdev at edulists.com.au>
Subject: Re: [Year 12 SofDev] Deja vu

I think there is a distinct difference between “table” and “function”.

Hash functions have applications other than being used for associative arrays or hash tables (as mentioned in study guide).They are used for encryption algorithms such as MD5. Also, the implementation of an associative array is dependent on the language - it might not even use an array, it could be implemented as a linked list or red-black tree or any data data structure.

I think this needs to be clarified for next year.


On 12 Nov 2016, at 2:42 PM, Tony Crewe <TonyCrewe at caulfieldgs.vic.edu.au<mailto:TonyCrewe at caulfieldgs.vic.edu.au>> wrote:

IMHO implied by ...

  1.  uses of data structures to organise and manipulate data, including associative arrays (or dictionaries or hash tables)
Tony


________________________________
From: sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au> <sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au>> on behalf of Brett Fitzsimmons <bpfitz at netspace.net.au<mailto:bpfitz at netspace.net.au>>
Sent: Saturday, 12 November 2016 2:20 PM
To: Year 12 Software Development Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Year 12 SofDev] Deja vu

There is also no reference to hash functions in the Study Guide.

Brett

On 12 Nov 2016, at 10:52 AM, Mark <mark at vceit.com<mailto:mark at vceit.com>> wrote:


The sample SD exam contained references in C10 to random and sequential files, and Paula has acknowledged that this was not a valid question since the terms are not in the study design.

Question B1 in the official SD exam refers to "a linear file", which also does not appear in the study design.

At least the question's marks did not depend on students knowing the definition of the term.

--

Mark Kelly

mark at vceit.com<mailto:mark at vceit.com>
http://vceit.com<http://vceit.com/>
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